


luck

by fadewords



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Aromantic Caleb Widogast, Autistic Caleb Widogast, Autistic Nott (Critical Role), Gen, Mild Angst, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, the fabled arosads fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2020-06-09 20:47:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 18,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19483720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadewords/pseuds/fadewords
Summary: Nott has a husband. Caleb adjusts.(or: arosads, n. the particular emotion often experienced by an aromantic person when they perceive increasing emotional distance in one or more of their friendships, often but not always shortly after a close friend enters, reestablishes, or deepens a romantic relationship; characterized primarily by feelings which often include but are not limited to melancholy, jealousy, guilt, and resignation. see: platonic pining.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> been writing this for almost a month now, have abt 7k worth of roughly-500-word snapshots lined up and some more in progress, should be posting at least weekly? at least weekly  
> enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> been writing this for almost a month now, have abt 7k worth of roughly-500-word snapshots lined up and some more in progress, should be posting at least weekly? at least weekly  
> enjoy!

Caleb stares at the ceiling.

Unpainted oak stares back—sturdy, brown, planks almost perfectly matching, almost certainly hewn from the same tree. Arranged all in a row, just so.

He searches for inconsistencies, for water spots, for mold, for scratches. Cracks in the wood grain. Scorch marks.

There are a few bits, of course. (There always are.) But not nearly so many as he expects. The buildings in Felderwin are astonishingly well-crafted, and nearly as well-maintained.

(Those that survived the attack, anyway.)

He stares at the mostly-perfect ceiling and thinks of a dozen other ones, a dozen other inns he has slept in, a dozen other rooms he has shared with Nott.

With Nott, who has maybe been in this one before. With Nott, who grew up in this town. With Nott, who is a halfling, and a mother, and married.

And _married_.

That last sticks in his head, caught like burrs in the cogs of his mind.

So much else could jar him—the new name, the new age, the new history he must weave around his understanding of her—but it is this that catches. This that gives him pause.

She is married. She has a husband. She has a partner. She's in love. She—

—is sleeping at the foot of the bed.

Facing him. Unwilling to turn her back, like they are on the road again, a little more than fresh-met, only just settling into something like—not permanence, but inevitability. Twitching, round the shoulders, like she longs to fling herself to the floor. (Or like she is having a nightmare, or both.) (Probably both.)

He tells Frumpkin to go to her, settle at her back, become a loaf. Frumpkin does. Within minutes, Nott stills.

Sleeps deeper. Curled small, breathing even, warm. And still there. (Facing him, and down at his ankles rather than tucked in the crook of his legs or snuggled up to his chest—but still there all the same, her breath tickling the sliver of skin where grubby trousers don't quite meet threadbare socks.)

Still there.

A small miracle, that.

A small miracle that she is sleeping here, at his feet, curled small and breathing and warm as ever, given that—given what they have—given that the man in Rexxentrum—given—

Caleb bites his tongue.

He is lucky, is the point. Very, quite, impossibly.

(She has every reason to sleep in someone else's room tonight. Every reason to keep far away from him, to loathe him, want to shoot him between the ribs, claw out his eyes. Every reason.)

(But here she is, crossbow untouched, hands folded loose in front of her chest, sleeping.)

(Lucky.)

He reaches for the rock in his pocket and wraps his fingers round it and he thinks—

Undeserved.

But the thing about luck, he thinks, as he turns the rock over in his hand, is that it does not operate in terms of morality, or worth, or cosmic debt. It’s never deserved.

It simply is.

He smooths his thumb over its surface, back and forth, back and forth, and he thinks of things that simply are—luck, and fate, and time. Goblins, and halflings, and corrupt wizards. Silly cons, interlocked fingers, exceptions to circles of silver string. Burning hay and burning flesh. Promises and plans.

Reality.

The night wears on, and his thumb traces the same path over and over, and his eyes grow heavier and heavier, and he thinks—and sleeps—

For now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm on tumblr at [arodrwho](http://www.arodrwho.tumblr.com)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caleb counts time in the tunnels.

Caleb counts time in the tunnels. One minute. Two minutes. Three. Four. He calls out the hour, every hour, so that he cannot lose track. And he walks, trailing after the group, staring into the near-dark.

The tunnel walls and floor flicker with shadow, half-illuminated by the usual row of Dancing Lights. The areas they don’t touch crawl with dancing light all their own, not remotely arcane—fast-darting afterimages in purple and blue, blurry, slowly changing shape and color until they finally fade. And overtop, around, and after them, the usual pinpricks that crowd in the dark, shifting and scattering like fine white sand, not fading at all but lingering, as ever, obscuring the dark spaces like mist, like smoke, like fog.

Caleb thinks, for a stomach-twisting moment, of numberless movement, numberless time, drifting through clouds.

He shakes his head and looks down at his feet, washed in arcane light, and walks on, still counting minutes, counting hours, and thinking in between about time—about how long they have been traveling, how long they have to go.

About Nott’s husband, and how long he has been waiting. How long he has been captive. How long he and Nott have been apart. How long she has missed him.

Weeks, on one hand. Years, on the other. Too long in both cases. Far too long.

Perhaps literally. Perhaps it is too late. (Yeza may be killed any day now, and he may reject Nott even if he lives long enough to be rescued, even if they succeed. This should have been done sooner.)

Still. They will do what they can. They will make it happen. He will help. He _is_ helping, already.

He is not helping very much, and certainly his contributions—providing light, keeping time, setting up the dome each night—pale in comparison to those of their cleric friends, with their Sending spells and Divination and effortless grasp of comfort-words—but he is helping a little, and he will be more help later.

He has to be. Has to. He made a promise, months ago now—

 _Whatever_ _you_ _need_ , _we_ _will_ _do_.

—and he intends to keep it.

Nott needs this. Needs her husband safe, needs him back. And, if it is the last thing he ever does for her (and it very well might be), he is going to help make that happen. As soon as possible, as painlessly as possible.

A promise is a promise, and she is his friend. He wants her to have this. He _wants_ her to have this, he does, even if—

Even—

Because she deserves it. (She deserves—everything. Has always deserved everything, always, as long as he’s known her and longer.) And because she has asked. And that. That.

There are—many things he does not know about Nott. Many, many, many. (He has always been aware of this. It has been that way by design, and is not news.) But there are, equally, many things that he _does_ know about her, things that still hold as true as they have for months upon months upon months, and shine all the truer for the added context. One of them is that Nott cannot stand water.

Another is this: she does not ask for things. Not important ones. (Not comfort, not healing, not a listening ear, not even _food_ , for the longest time, unless she heard Caleb’s stomach rumbling.) She does not think herself worth the asking.

(She is worth more than Yasha’s weight in incense, more than a pondful of the finest ink, more than bread-mitts, more than luckstones, more than the sun-balanced ticking in his head, and still—)

(He wants to throttle half of Felderwin, flay the nearby goblin clan, banish the mage woman to another plane of existence, for convincing her so thoroughly that she is not worth something so simple as—)

But she has asked for this. (Just this, just this once.) And that—well.

Part of him is—proud of her ( _copper wire_ , he thinks, _yellow sparks_ ), because it is not easy for her, being the center of attention, the group priority. Not easy at all, and he knows that. But part of him is—something else ( _a hole in the heel of a sock_ , he thinks, _stomach pains_ ), because this feels uncomfortably like the time she saw him stumble, dizzy with hunger, and made him sit against a tree while she stole fish and greens from a nearby farmhouse, and gave him all the greens because she couldn’t _digest_ them, and tucked half her fish in his pockets besides and he didn’t find out until the end of the day when she grew so worn herself he had to carry her, and—

It feels like that, except this time she is also going to eat the greens, maybe. Sort of. So to speak. And maybe Yeza will not notice, either. Or—he will notice that she _is_ green, certainly, but perhaps not that she has metaphorically—or he will not care about the—or.

The comparison is getting a little confused. (There is a reason Caleb does not like metaphors. They always get a bit muddled, even when there are not two of them for mixing.)

She is doing this for Yeza, is the point. For Yeza, and not herself. (Which would almost be fair, given the circumstances, and the danger that he is in, except that those circumstances also include Yeza hating goblins and Nott being a goblin and—)

So he is holey socks and stomach pains alongside wire and sparks, and—relief ( _thin silver, sharp incense_ ), that she trusts them enough to ask this of them, trusts that they will do their utmost to follow through. He is also afraid ( _counted seconds_ , terrified, call a spade a spade), because—

If the trust is misplaced? If they cannot save him? If it is too late?

—No.

It is not too late. Yeza is still alive—and in passable enough condition to speak, besides. (Not, Caleb knows, that this means terribly much. Healing exists, and even magic aside there are several means, a multitude really, of torturing someone while still leaving them able to—)

But that is not the point. He is alive, is the point. Alive, so there is a chance, however small, of rescuing him.

So they will rescue him. (Somehow.) Her husband, her—

It is five-thirteen. Five-fourteen, now.

—partner. They will get him back to her and he will accept her (or they will pummel him until he does) and she will be happy again and—

The clock ticks on. Caleb walks. He squints at Nott through the flickering half-dark, some feet ahead at Jester’s side, clutching a crossbow bolt in both hands, turning it over and over and over until she—the least clumsy person he has ever met—drops it, and picks it up again, and begins to chew on one end, shuffling along, shoulders a bit hunched, ears angled down, almost flat to the sides of her face.

The clock ticks on, and Caleb walks, and watches Nott’s ears press flatter and flatter, and he thinks—

She deserves so much to be happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was originally much shorter and contained a lot more arosads but then i thought. canon gave us slowburn platonic pining. i'm tracing over canon. i, too, shall keep things slow
> 
> also caleb has visual snow now because i said so. you're welcome


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is nearing the end of another day in the tunnels and Caleb walks a few feet behind Nott, who doesn’t so much scurry forward as half-shuffle, stiff, shoulders tense like she’s made her hands into fists where they’re shoved so deep in her pockets.

It is nearing the end of another day in the tunnels and Caleb walks a few feet behind Nott, who doesn’t so much scurry forward as half-shuffle, stiff, shoulders tense like she’s made her hands into fists where they're shoved so deep in her pockets.

No one else has noticed, he doesn’t think, and it is _possible_ this is because there is nothing to notice, because he is only overthinking, worrying too much, too consumed with the lingering smell of—not burning flesh, but charred clothing. Charred clothing, thick in his nose and the back of his throat, still, hours later.

Possible, he thinks, but unlikely.

Because of the shuffling, and the way she is not doing rabbit arms, and the way she has been laughing just a little too loud all day and now has gone rather quiet. And—

Frumpkin is already wandering up ahead, so Caleb bids him turn around and look at Nott, just for a moment. Frumpkin obeys, and there it is—her jaw clenched, her teeth tucked carefully behind her lips, just as they always are when she is trying hard not to scowl or wince.

She is in pain. Still hurting from the lava, most likely. (The others did not heal all the damage completely.) And also, probably, compounding the issue, tired and sore from the effort of keeping up with so many big folk for so long at such a demanding nonstop pace. And, of course, anxious on top of it all.

And not saying a word about any of it, because of course she is not. (And he means it both ways, every syllable of the pun as tired as it is tongue-in-cheek.) Again, she does not think herself worth the asking.

And on top of it—on top of it—she is too focused on moving to truly care. Too focused, he knows, on getting back to Yeza. (Part of him is distantly grateful—burns are horribly unpleasant, even half-scabbed over, so it is good that she has such a compelling distraction—but. But. It is distant, below the shock, and mingles unpleasantly with other things he dares not name, because—)

He knows that focus. Knows that expression. He knows it like he knows the sight of his own fingertips, blackened with soot.

He has seen it countless times. In a jail cell. In a wood. On a roadside. Near a farmhouse. Surrounded by gnolls. Facing off against a manticore. Surrounded by merrow. At a graveside. On the ocean, so many times. On an island. In Felderwin, sitting in front of a river—sitting with her back to it, facing her friends, placing her little goblin body between them and the waters.

Before a river of lava, about to leap.

It is a look that means her mind is made up, her plans are set, and though she is terrified she will not be dissuaded and she will not have any regrets. It is a look that means that, whatever she is about to do, she will gladly do again.

The expression only hardens the longer they run. It has never looked more at home on her face. (Molded like clay, cast in fire.)

Caleb slips back into his own vision and tries not to think about the look Nott must have worn on the flight from the goblin camp (one very like this, he imagines). He tries not to think about how it must have slipped when they took her to the river. Tries not to think about how she nearly died in another river today.

He tries not to think about how she would so obviously do it again in a heartbeat. How she will do anything, risk anything, endure anything if it means getting her husband back.

She has always been reckless, but this is—this—

And for a husband she fully expects to reject her on sight. A husband she fully expects will loathe her. A husband—

Caleb watches her soldier on, silent, and tries not to hate the man.

It is easy. Nott loves him.

It is easy. He has done nothing yet. (Yet, yet, yet.)

(It is easy. Caleb does not deserve her either.)

(And never has—not in the jail cell, not with the gnolls, not in Zadash, not in the dragon’s lair, not in Felderwin, not frozen in front of fire giants watching two bolts zip past him courtesy of a friend still _very much on fire_. And mostly likely, almost certainly, near definitely, never—)

Caleb shoves it out mind and focuses on the matter at hand: Nott, still injured, still walking, hurting unnecessarily.

Options.

The most obvious—scoop her up so that she does not have to walk, or offer a ride on his shoulders.

He does neither. Being held may cause more pain than simply walking, with half-healed wounds like these, and he has already hurt her once today. (Trying to pat out the flames which had already gone, because he could still see them through his blurry panic-vision, little flickers and red embers, and could not think what else to do.) He has no intention of repeating the blunder.

So he keeps back and jams his hands in his pockets instead. (They burn at the fingertips, like he’s still brushing her searing—seared—flesh, and all the way back to his knuckles besides. It is—deeply uncomfortable, and has been for two hours and thirty-six minutes. Ever since he cast that last Polymorph.)

It is just as well, he thinks. He is not sure if she would say yes, and he is not sure he wants to hear _no_. (He would respect it, of course, and give her the appropriate space, that is not in question. But all the same. He is not sure he wants to hear it.)

Other options, then—

He can Message her, remind her that it is okay to ask for a rest if she needs one. (Such reminders rarely work, but she seems to appreciate them all the same, at least from the others.) Or, perhaps better, he can skip that step, eliminate the chance of her stubbornly refusing, and ask for one himself. Feign exhaustion, give her a chance to rest alongside him. (And perhaps he can ask for healing while they are at it, ascertain whether they have spells enough to spare, and if that is the case then—)

Oh, he is being stupid.

Caleb pulls out his copper wire and turns slightly to face Jester, who is just a few feet ahead of Nott. (If Jester has the spells to spare, she will heal her. If she does not, she will convince Nott to rest. All Caleb has to do is alert her to the problem.) But before he finishes coiling the wire even halfway—

Caduceus steps past him. “Hey, Miss Nott. Do you mind if I take a look at you for a moment?”

“Why?”

“Well, you still seem a little singed. I’d like to help with that, if I may.”

“...Fine.”

Everyone halts as Caduceus crouches down in the odd way he always does and rests a hand on Nott’s shoulder. There is the low mutter, the lichen, the crumbling—and then wounds appearing several days older, and Nott standing considerably looser.

Caduceus smiles. Nott mumbles her thanks.

Caleb untangles the wire and slips it back in his pocket. His fingers twitch with the spell unfinished, and the motion sends fresh spikes down them, but he ignores it.

Nott is taken care of. That is what matters.

Caduceus stands up and returns to his place at the back of the group, and everyone begins moving again. Nott no longer shuffles, and her hands are no longer jammed in her pockets, but dangling a little in front of her chest, limp-wristed.

Caleb watches, a moment, then steps forward and takes one of her hands in his. Squeezes it, just once, sending spikes further up his own knuckles. (An old promise, of a kind. Wordless, and wanting—but the best he has.)

She glances at him, tired eyes and tired smile, and fond all-through. She squeezes back.

Fire-lines run from his nails to his wrists, and there’s weights in his shoes, and Nott’s clothes still smell uncomfortably, overwhelmingly, nauseatingly of ash, and there is still the lingering, everpresent threat of _yet, yet, yet (never, never, never)_ —

But there is this:

He squeezes again, and she squeezes back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this...took some doing, but i think i'm happy w/how it turned out. only one more (probably short) chapter in the tunnels and then we can Move On, wahey


	4. Chapter 4

Nott calls Yeza the love of her life and Caleb thinks, _oh_.

It’s not a surprise, exactly, but something in it is startling. Not terribly so, just softly, like stepping on a particularly dry-looking leaf and hearing silence instead of _crunch_. (Or not like that at all. He is unsure what to compare it to, exactly, and not thinking in so many words, just vaguely cognizant of a half-breath of stillness and visions of fallen leaves, damp on the undersides.)

Nott calls Yeza the love of her life and Caleb thinks, _of course_.

She married him, after all. People generally do that for a reason, and the reason is generally romance. (Something in _that_ is like embers. He cannot say why.)

Nott calls Yeza the love of her life and Caleb thinks _one! two-three, one! two-three._

The rhythm continues in his head even as he excuses himself from the conversation, even as he discusses their campsite with Caduceus, even as he sets up the dome. _One! two-three, one! two-three, one! two-three, one!_

Waltzing. Astrid.

The love of _his_ life, once, long ago. (So very long—nearly seventeen years, though it feels, some days, only six.)

He remembers how it felt (or how he thought it did), loving her (or longing to) all those years ago. His blooming feelings, all-encompassing, overwhelming, bright. Wildfire red, cherry-blossom pink, midnight blue.

(Gray, now. Streaked with color, still, sometimes, when he dares to look, which isn’t often—but overwhelmingly gray.)

He doesn’t know if Nott’s love for Yeza is quite the same—what colors it comes with, if any, how loud it is, what it entails, how it feels—but he knows it must be at least as strong, if not stronger.

(Probably stronger. Caleb’s feelings have withered with time and distance and fear. Nott’s haven’t.)

It only makes sense. She loves fiercer and more easily and (her husband is not a fighter, much less a murderer, and)—

She married him. Died for him. Is risking death again, now, crossing into enemy territory, crossing rivers of lava—

Because she loves him. Loves his sideburns and his goofy grin and tiny little alchemist self like Caleb loved Astrid’s nose and biting wit and brilliant, scheming mind. (Or maybe not quite like that, after all. It is hard to say. Astrid was such a long time ago, such a long time ago, and even were it yesterday—he is not Nott. He cannot know whether their experiences are—were—the same, or even similar.)

She loves Yeza, is the point. Loves him bright and loud and unyielding. She cannot lose him, not again. (Once was enough.)

Caleb glances sideways, without pausing his spell, and there is Nott, wringing her hands, staring bright-eyed at the ground, ears still as stone. (Once was far, far more than enough.)

Caleb understands. (Or at least he thinks he might, a little. Again, it is hard to be entirely sure, but—) He remembers how that felt, too. Losing Astrid.

A mess of things, sorrow and regret and all tangled up in realization and revulsion and terror at the knowledge that (Astrid murdered her parents and thought it right and did not break and) if she found him, she would kill him too. (Kill him and leave him to rot and not break then either.)

It is hard to love someone, knowing that. (Hard, but not impossible, he knows, he knows. There are streaks in the gray.)

Yet Nott loves Yeza, knowing he hates goblins as Astrid hates traitors. (But, he reminds himself, _but_. Yeza is not a fighter.)

(But, a corner of his mind whispers, but—he _is_ an alchemist, and the beauty of poison is that it does not require strength to administer, only cleverness. Only cleverness, and one of the only things Caleb knows about Yeza is that the man is so, so clever.)

(And even if he has no penchant for it, even if he remains staunchly not a murderer—words require no strength either, and a simple few could tear her world apart all over again in an instant. And if he truly hates goblins as much as she has said—)

(He hopes Nott is wrong. He hopes, he hopes. For her sake.)

She loves the man so much.

He does not want her to lose that. (And she hasn’t, yet, she hasn’t. Yeza is still alive, still answering Jester’s messages, and apparently safe, at the moment. There is still time. Still time.) So—

They must get him back. They must. They must.

Caleb finishes setting up the dome and transitions seamlessly into resummoning Frumpkin and thinks, _Not must. Will._

( _Whatever she needs—_ , his mind echoes. _Whatever—_ )

So they will. (Somehow, somehow.)

And when they do, he thinks without words, tracing symbols in the air. When they do, they will be careful.

They will be very, very careful. They will watch him, and they will speak to him, and they will make sure that he listens and sees her and does not dismiss her out of hand.

(Or worse.)

They will—they will make sure of it. (Whatever happens, whatever he says, however he reacts, he will not be cruel.)

They will make _sure_ of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> consistent chapter lengths?? in MY arosads fic??? it's less likely than u think


	5. Chapter 5

Caleb holds onto the rope as he walks across the slippery riverbottom.

He does not look at Nott, just his hands and his shoes. Partly this is because he is doing it for her, humoring her, a show of loyalty and affection and other things that are easiest expressed without eye contact—but also he has to, a little bit, in order to keep his footing. ( _Slippery_ is an understatement. It is like walking on raw egg dropped on the floor, before the sprinkling of the salt. Or perhaps slugs. Or eels. Or ooze. _Or just mud and algae-covered rock_ , he thinks, somewhere between frustrated and dry, _how is that for a comparison_.)

No one else seems to be having the same trouble, but that is unsurprising. Caleb has always been a bit of a klutz. (He still cannot cartwheel, for all Eodwulf’s lessons. He still cannot waltz, for all Astrid’s.) And it is fine, also. Caleb is too busy being grateful to be embarrassed.

He will have to thank Nott later. (Not just now. It will only sound insincere, over-kind, false, mocking, and she’s had enough of that last from Fjord.)

He frowns, a little, and then forces the look off of his face. (It will do no good.)

He walks on, expressionless, holding the rope, hand over hand, and counting the minutes. Nearly there. Nearly.

He will thank her when he gets to the other side. Thank her, and make a joke about his clumsiness, and she will either laugh and agree or vehemently deny it and exaggerate his grace (half out of loyalty and half for comedic effect, though she will swear up and down if asked that it is only the former). Either way, maybe she will smile. And maybe after that they will talk a little about nothing, and maybe after that he can bring up a few somethings he has been meaning to mention (an old promise, a new spell, a caveat or two), and maybe along the way a question or three (nothing too personal, but he is curious about Yeza—but perhaps extending an invitation to share if she wants is better than asking, he does not want her to feel forced, after all), and maybe—

—But when he gets to the other side, half a script strung up like cobwebs and tinsel in his head, the bugbear begins to walk off and Caleb finds himself trying to reassure him. And then there is conversation about where to go from here, and then they are traveling again and Caleb thinks perhaps now is a good time and he glances at Nott—but she has already struck up a conversation with Jester.

Caleb holds onto the words, tumbles them over and over so that he cannot lose them, and waits for a break in their conversation.

But when one finally comes, Nott looks winded and wound up and overtired all at once, a familiar paradox combination which usually means she is not in the mood for talking at all, much less talking about important things, so he holds his tongue. (Perhaps later, he thinks. Perhaps later.)

They make camp for the night and Caleb busies himself with the dome. By the time he finishes the spell, Nott is curled up in her bedroll, already half-asleep.

Caleb lays down beside her. (Later, he thinks. Later. In the morning, perhaps.)

-

But in the morning, Caleb has no time to thank Nott for the rope, or to make the joke he planned, or to offer to listen about Yeza.

He does find an opportunity to tell her about the spell, though.

Not quietly, just the two of them, as he’d hoped. Not in all the careful words he’d planned. But he tells her, all the same.

He does not tell her that he has made modifications to it. He does not tell her that Polymorph is technically only for transforming people into beasts, or beasts into other beasts. That it is not for transforming people into other people, technically, originally, but he has made it so regardless. He does not tell her that he has made these changes for her benefit.

He does not get the chance.

It is maybe for the best, though, because he would have only embarrassed himself, because Jester appears able to do much the same without any effort (which is, he is not going to lie, a little bit disheartening—but then, Jester is very clever and very creative, and using divine magics rather than arcane besides, so it is fair and makes sense that she should be able to achieve equivalent results without his hours of study and trial and error).

It is maybe for the best, also, because even just getting as far as telling her that he has looked into the spell for her sake, because of her wanting to change back, even just _that_ makes her rather—

She makes a very odd face, when he tells her that.

She makes a very odd face, and she sounds almost _confused_. She tells him that they haven’t talked about her wanting this, and she didn’t know he was _aware_ that she wanted it, and she doesn’t want to get in the way of his learning, but if he happens to stumble on a way, well, she won’t say no?

But it sounds almost like a _question_ , like she is unsure or reluctant or humoring him, maybe, or maybe like it is an unexpected gift, like she does not know why he is giving it to her—

Which makes sense, kind of, because she seems confused, and questioning, and caught off-guard. Utterly bewildered as to why he has studied this, baffled that he has offered it, that he has realized she wants it, even though—didn’t she say? Didn’t he hear, very clearly, more than once—?

He tries to parse it, tries to explain himself when the parsing fails, explain that this is _already_ what he studies (as though he would not pick up a new school of magic if she needed him to), it is not getting in the way (as though that matters), it only makes sense for him to learn (as though he would ever refuse even were it nonsensical), and—and it is only a _step_ , of course but it is _a_ step— _a_ step, and not the only one, surely she must understand that it is not the only one, that he is going to keep going, because she needs this, she wants it—

Doesn’t she?

Caleb frowns at her, puzzled and terribly confused himself, now, and finds her looking back, after a moment, and makes himself look away.

The conversation winds onto other paths, but part of Caleb’s brain sticks here, coiling around and around the question—

Doesn’t she?

Doesn’t she want this, didn’t she say….? Does she not remember that he has promised? Months ago now, months, the two of them, alone, apart from the others, talking, discussing plans. Does she not remember the conversation, the agreement, the arrangement they came to? (The promise he has carried around in the back of his skull and the tips of his fingers ever since?)

( _Whatever you_ —)

Surely this falls under the terms? Surely this is something she needs, something she wants?

Or is it not? She’s said she wouldn’t say no, but that is not quite the same thing as saying _yes_. And it is true, she did not ask him for it directly (but why in the world would she have to?), she never requested anything of the kind (why, when he has already promised?), but he just sort of assumed—

But maybe that is the problem. The assuming. Maybe he should have asked first, before beginning to study? Or something?

Or maybe he has misunderstood, somehow?

(It would not be the first time. He misunderstands people very often, and always has.)

(It would not be the first time with Nott, either. Not even the first in a very long time. Only another in a terrible recent streak, one he has been trying to cast off. Maybe this is just another.)

(Maybe.)

(Probably.)

But Nott does not seem angry, in any case, only confused and reluctant to bother him, and—maybe that is it. The asking.

The thought settles him, a little, and he turns more of his mind to the task at hand.

(A tiny fraction stays coiled, and worries about misunderstandings, and streaks, and promises. Remembered and forgotten.)

(A tiny fraction coils tighter, and worries.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> caleb has dyspraxia cos i said so. ur welcome  
> anyways. fun fact i had the bit about caleb worrying over nott's response before last week's episode, specifically bc of that sweet sweet combo of autism Wait What Emotion Are They Feeling, anxiety Oh No I Fucked Up, arosads I Keep Fucking Up And It's Widening The Gulf, and that Patented Caleb Widogast Self-Loathing, but bOY HOwdy if last week's episode don't uhhhhhhh put a slightLY new spin on things  
> anyways in other news next chapter Should be a flashback one unless iiiii change my plans & don't include any of those but i don't think that's gonna happen so


	6. Chapter 6

It started, Caleb thinks, with water.

This streak of mistakes, this widening gulf. It started with water.

On the water.

On the Ball Eater.

On the Ball Eater, there was a conversation.

-

_They are alone, as they so often are, during conversations like these._

_Alone, in the hushed quiet of their bunk, just the two of them, in the last minutes before midnight._

_Nott’s eyes shine in the dark, familiar yellow amid the swirling haze, hovering somewhere above his ankles._

_His voice is low, stumbling, as he asks her about Felderwin, trying to give her both room to speak and room to refuse. (He wants to help, not pry.)_

_Nott’s voice, when she answers, is scratchy, and a little funny, and a little slow. She sounds hesitant, reluctant—and confused, he thinks. And over-patient, patient-on-purpose, like she gets, sometimes, when she thinks he should already know what she is saying, but has accepted that for whatever reason he does not._

_He hears this, registers it, kind of, sort of, belatedly, but he keeps going anyways, asking after things she’s long since told him, remembering the answers but puzzling over them, trying to process the feelings that go with the words, all tangled and muddled and complex, trying to get both through his thick skull and failing miserably, miserably. Miserably, as always._

_And then she says that this friend she wants to visit—Yeza, it must be—was very special to her, and she asks if Caleb has anyone like that and he says no, of course he says no. But for some reason she disagrees with him, says that he does, just not at home, and he thinks that perhaps she means Astrid, that perhaps, like Jester, she has misunderstood—and this jars him (Nott so rarely misunderstands), and he corrects her, says_ not besides you _, and repeats it, and slides back into questions._

_Continues them, in an effort to understand, continues in winding circles, getting nowhere, nowhere, nowhere until finally he stops and she stops and he offers a compliment or two and she returns with a comment, offhand, rattling, about mind-altering spells, and then a compliment of her own, insistent and sweet, and the juxtaposition is—_

_And then they bid each other goodnight and settle into heavy, ringing silence, broken only by steady goblin breaths and slightly unsteady wizard ones._

_(There are words still caught in the base of his throat, and the air is thick with a terrible hovering sense that he’s done wrong, somehow, done_ wrong _, and made Nott feel more alone instead of less, made her think that he has not been_ listening _, but he has, he has, he has, he just—he does not understand.)_

-

He has entertained the idea, once or twice, in the days since Felderwin, that perhaps his terrible confusion stemmed from a sense—however subconscious—that her story did not quite add up, and a desire to make sense of it, feel for the doctored edges.

He would like to think to so—to think the whole stumbling mess a sign that he knew, even then, that there was something hidden, something—not more, but _other_ to her tale.

He would like to think.

It is a nice thought. A nice story. It casts him intelligent, and insightful, and kind. An attentive friend. A good one.

In truth, he was not any of these. (Is not, still, but was then even less so.) He was only confused. Confused, and clumsy with feelings, as he has always been.

And, in his clumsiness, he broke something.

Or—

No.

No, it was not broken then, not yet. (Is maybe not broken, still.) Only cracked. And it had been cracked before then, as well.

He remembers, before—

-

 _Caleb pulls her aside and confesses, bewildered and ashamed and serious as a knife in the gut, that he has gotten distracted. That he has forgotten what truly matters, forgotten_ them _. Nott-and-Caleb. Caleb-and-Nott._

 _Nott’s face does something, in response, but her ears stay very still, so he can’t tell what it is. (Hurt, he assumes. She hides little else, at least from him.) And she tells him not to, tells him that she won’t forget_ him _. He tells her to stay close._

_Later, in the cold, dark water, Nott swims over to his side. She stays close. She stays close and she tells him in impossibly soft tones that she’s glad he forgot (she can’t be), because it means he’s thinking about the group (he shouldn’t be), but (again, again) she’ll never forget about him (the knife twists)._

_She says it as though it is a consolation (it isn’t), as though it makes everything okay (it doesn’t, it doesn’t, it doesn’t, the knife_ stabs _)._

 _Caleb has made—Caleb has made a_ mistake _._

-

And he had, of course—

But it didn’t begin there. It began—

A few days before, in the dragon’s lair. (Fire, he thinks, not water. Fire, at the heart of things.)

-

_Caleb falls and falls and falls and crashes to the ground and skins his palms and picks himself up and where is Nott there she is and—_

_Dragon. (Blue, teeth, wings, claws,_ teeth _.)_

_Familiar voices telling him to run. No one else in sight. Bruised already, battered._

_Real, actual,_ very angry _dragon._

_He reaches into his pouch, tasting ozone, and casts the only spell that can save him and zips for the apparent exit and—_

_Finds himself on the Ball Eater again, surrounded by charred and bloodied friends._

_Or—_

_Not surrounded, not quite._

_Jester is not there. (Nor Twiggy, but he more expected that, and she is not really a friend anyway.)_

_Nor Nott._

_He expects her speeding at his heels, popping out behind him—_

_But no. Nothing. Only dead air, empty space, damning silence._

_For one minute._

_Two._

_Three._

_Four._

_Five._

_Six._

_Sev—_

_—Nott, singed and swaying. Barely upright, clinging to consciousness by the skin of her very many very bloody teeth. Smoking. (The air around her smells like a cookfire, like the inside of Beau’s pockets, like—) Charred. Half-dead._

_(His fault.)_

_Jester arrives, nearly as burnt. A few moments later—Twiggy. Singed as well. Both bleeding, breathless, but alive. (Alive, no thanks to—)_

_The air is thick, the ground too steady. He stumbles off._

_(He returns, later, to ask a favor he does not deserve. And Nott—steady, over-generous Nott—grants it. And he carries her to bed, as he should have carried her to safety.)_

_(And did not, did not, did not.)_

-

Selfish, he thinks. Selfish and spineless and cowardly.

A mistake, clearly, obviously—one of his biggest and most recent—but still not the root of things, not really. (A leaf, perhaps, blighted, a symptom. But not the source of the rot.)

He said as much, in the water. He was—had gotten—distracted.

-

_Untold books with untold secrets line the shelves, buckled down, anchored in, locked shut, and Caleb wants, more than anything, to gather every last one._

_He wants, more than anything, to leave. (Stay. Leave. Stay, stay, stay.)_

_Nott frees a book._

_He lets her. (He wants them so badly it claws.)_

_He says_ one more _. She tries two._

_Then he says (too soon, too soon, not soon enough) that they should go._

_He needs the books, she says, already looking for another to unlock, and that is true enough. He always needs books, especially arcane ones, as these so clearly are._

_But the others—_

_He needs_ them _, he tells her, and the words are like acid in his mouth. They bite. (They burn.)_

_She is not swayed. She keeps looking._

_He screams at her they need to_ leave _, and she keeps looking, as though he has said nothing, as though she cannot hear him, as though they are on two distinctly different planes, faintly overlapping but out of alignment. (If he reaches for her, his fingers will pass through.)_

_He begs her, and she turns to go, fingers skimming the shelves—and then turns back and tries to free another book. And fails._

_And then, finally, finally she scurries over._

_She says she can’t reach so he helps, hand over hand, and finally, finally, she is tangible again and the world is solid—_

_And then they are falling._

-

He understands, now, why she lingered. Why she insisted. What she was hoping to find in those tomes.

Arcane secrets, yes, but not for him—for her.

She was not misunderstanding his priorities, back in the study (nor, he realizes, in Yussah’s tower). He was misunderstanding hers.

His fault. His mistake.

And perhaps if he had realized, if he had done what she wanted—

Perhaps they would have arrived to find the dragon already dead and she would not have been hurt. Perhaps he would have found a book with secrets that might have helped her.

Or perhaps neither of those would have happened—but at least he would not have abandoned her to die in a dragon’s lair after ignoring her obvious need for the books. At least he would not have distanced himself twice over.

At least.

But, Caleb thinks, but.

The distance did not begin then, either. (It was earlier. Far, far earlier.)

-

It began, Caleb thinks, with water.

On the water, and in it.

In Nicodranas.

-

_Caleb sees Nott’s ears press flat and her grip tighten on her sleeves and her pupils narrow to tiny slits. She goes taut like a bowstring, her shoulders hunched like Frumpkin arching his back in the rain. He half-expects her to hiss and all-expects her to drink._

_She is terrified._

_Terrified and stubborn and not_ listening _._

_She wants to stay behind but they cannot split up. They need her, Caleb needs her, and she needs to be safe and less scared (and needed herself, that usually helps her, helping)._

_Caleb reaches into his component pouch and finds honey and smears it across his mouth._

_It is terribly sticky, and mildly sweet, and hums with magic as he speaks, as he Suggests—_

_And then Nott is on the water, and she is needed, and safe, and less scared. And Caleb is happy. (He is happy, he is satisfied, he has helped—)_

_And then it is over and. Nott is not. She is not. She looks…?_

_She doesn’t quite meet his gaze, and she wrings her hands just a little, and she tells him that it’s fine (it clearly isn’t), and she’s glad he did it (she shouldn’t be), but he should maybe ask first next time (ask)._

_He—_

_—did not think to. (Didn’t think to, didn’t think to, only acted, too convinced of his own cleverness and utility and righteousness to so much as consider—)_

_And now Nott is quiet, and staring past his ears, and wringing her hands, and standing entirely too far away. Because—_

_He has fucked up. (Again.)_

_In that moment, he swears, to himself and to her—next time, he will ask. He will not assume._

-

And maybe, Caleb thinks. Maybe that is it. The common thread, the root of the matter, the fire-and-water at the heart of things.

Because, for all he has sworn not to, he has been assuming rather a lot.

He assumed she would be fine with Suggestion, he assumed the nature of her motives in the study, he assumed she would follow at his heels with the dragon, he assumed she would be upset at him for forgetting to put their partnership first, he assumed he halfway understood her past, and her problems, and her feelings and fears and—most recently—desires and goals and plans.

Assumed, always.

Small wonder, then, that there is such a gulf between them.

On top of awful circumstance (a flood of new anxieties, and both of their worlds flipped sideways), on top of priorities slipping out of alignment (like a fine piano gradually mistuned), on top of misunderstandings (tone-deaf, clumsy), on top of it all—Caleb has repeatedly broken a very simple promise. (That the promise was only in terms of that one spell is irrelevant. He should have known better than to consider the rule so limited. He should have generalized it.)

(Should have, but did not.)

He will—he will have to do better, in the future. Check in if ever he is unsure, and even—and perhaps especially—if he is not. 

Though that is getting rarer, lately. Surety. (He has been unsure of many things for a very, very long time—but Nott has not often been one of them. That is changed, now.)

Because he knows her so well (so well, so well), but also there are parts of her that he has just met, and parts that he still does not know. And because—she talks of going home, sometimes. Someday. Perhaps soon. Perhaps not. She never quite says.

It is an unknown. (Another for the pile which has—not sprung up overnight, but shifted closer and tripled in the early light of dawn.)

And it is hard to be sure, with so many unknowns.

It is hard.

But the first step, Caleb supposes, is to broaden the narrow promise and hold fast to it. To stop making so many assumptions, and just sit, for the time being, in uncertainty (at least until they have a moment to talk).

Yes, he thinks. Yes, he can do this. (It will be unpleasant, as uncertainty always is—but it is already unpleasant, and at least this way it is part of the plan.)

So he will do it, for now. (For now, until they find a moment. Whenever that may be, however long it may take.)

(Days stretch out ahead of him, numberless, and he tries not to count the ones behind.)

He grounds himself in the moment, in the unfamiliarity of his tiefling form, and keeps an eye on Nott.

He thinks—this goblin seems nice. He thinks—these rats are pretty vicious. He thinks—it is time to recast Polymorph.

(He thinks—sixty-five days.)

(Sixty-five.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this uhhh spiraled a lil bit there uh  
> yeah  
> as u can maybe tell i've been real sad abt caleb & nott since the study n caleb seemed t'be too n so. [waves hand] this? this


	7. Chapter 7

Caleb trails after the group and tries to keep his head down.

Polymorph helps him blend in, sure, but it will not last forever, and they are still a ragtag bunch, and there is no need to draw more attention to themselves than they already have. Not if they can avoid it.

So he trails after the group and tries to keep his head down. And, along the way, tries to pluck up the words (pluck up the _courage_ ) to pull Nott aside, when there is a moment, and just—talk to her. (Congratulate her on her negotiating skills, because she did very well, very _well_ , and also ask what she thought of the shopowner, and perhaps ask if she is doing all right, because he is worried, and perhaps she may like to be asked even if she declines to answer honestly.)

But they stop outside of the Lady Zethris’s building before he can so much as tug on her sleeve.

After a bit of discussion, Jester goes inside, and Nott goes with her. Caleb itches to follow and itches to hide (wanting to help and wanting to be as far from Krynn officials as possible), and compromises by waiting with the rest in the road out front. He counts the minutes that Nott is gone, and counts the minutes until Polymorph wears off.

The dual work keeps his mind mostly occupied, mostly away from the knowledge that he will likely be attacked if he is not tucked away somewhere when the spell goes.

(It is not a new feeling, precisely, knowing that he will be gutted if he is discovered. It is five-years baked into his skin. But he is used to feeling scrutinized for his obvious poverty, and his stench, and his past, specifically. Not his race. That is new.)

(New and a little discomfiting. He so hates to stand out.)

Caleb discovers that he is shifting from foot to foot and fiddling with the edge of his scarf and freezes. Holds himself still as stone. (He is not supposed to be drawing attention to himself. Fidgeting draws attention.)

He jams his hands in his pockets and half-holds his breath as he waits for Jester and Nott to scurry back out of the building.

They do, eventually.

They discuss the results of the meeting. Caleb’s tail lashes wildly. He wraps it around his leg as he has seen Jester do, and tries to contribute. (As ever, he does not contribute much.)

They leave the city, then, all huddled together (too close for private conversation).

But that is fine, he thinks. Perhaps later. Perhaps when they bed down. Easier to borrow a moment then, and easier to truly talk, under cover of dark (Nott can see just as well, but Caleb cannot, and that, he thinks, makes somewhat of a difference).

But by the time the dome is set and they have eaten and Caleb settles into his bedroll, Nott is near-asleep.

He watches her a moment, fond. The rise-and-fall of her chest. The slight twitch of her drooping ears. The circles around her shuttered eyes, heavy and faintly yellow-brown.

Well, he thinks, as he shifts closer. Well. Perhaps tomorrow.

And then it is morning and there is concern about Fjord and telling Nott to—to _stop_ with the leadership bit. It is familiar, and fond, and he appreciates both, but it is also—

Grating. Not in the sense that the drone of a fly round his ears is grating, but in the sense that reaching into his innermost pocket for bat shit and coming out with a cocoon is grating.

Disconcerting, perhaps, is a better word. (The words do not fit in that pocket. Or—something of the sort.)

He has tried to explain before, and he tries again now, with more words, clearer ones, because sometimes it seems it helps her to know _why_ she should not say things (it certainly does for himself), but still she does not understand. She keeps it going, instead, and it.

She is missing the point.

She should know, should understand that after—everything (after Bren), he is not fit to lead anyone. (He cannot, even if he wanted to. And he should never want to. Never, not once.)

He is not explaining right, he thinks. That must be it, that is _usually_ it, he is not so good with words, which is part of the problem.

The others are bantering and he is trying to keep up, to temper the mess gently, squash it to silence, make his point. (You can call me—Caleb Widogast is my name, he says, and it is part banter, part shut-down, part explanation.)

And then Nott makes a _joke_ and—

Something in him wavers. (Warm, an abrupt wash of sun.)

He cannot fight the smile, nor the rising blush, and he walks away before embarrassment can melt him to candle-wax (to Caleb-wax, says a treacherous part of his brain, in a high, scratchy voice). Before the affection can begin spilling like sap from his ears.

Because—this—

It is familiar. It is clever, and magnificently blunt, and silly, and soft.

It is—very Nott. Very Nott.

Thought slips from his mind utterly and all that is left is bubbling embarrassment-delight-affection.

There are worse things, he knows vaguely, to be left with.

He returns, after a bit, having collected himself and remembered he wants to speak to Nott—and promptly turns around again, reminded of one of the worse things. (The blood pact. Trent’s teachings on his tongue. The look on Jester’s face.)

And then they are heading into town again, and then there is training big cats and he is distracted, to say the least. (Nott makes another joke at his expense and his whole chest buzzes, filled with humming and possibly, possibly bees.)

(She is—so good.)

And then there is a fight and he thinks fleetingly that perhaps there is a moment here, and it has been such a good day—but they are both drawn in, watching.

And then the fight is over and he thinks perhaps—

But then they are tracking the drow Beau fought and suddenly, apparently it is Dairon and—

Then they are in the stables and—

Nott takes Jester’s hand easily, like it is nothing, and—

Caleb. Caleb. Caleb. Stalls.

Stalls, stock-still, trying to wrap his head around—trying to conceptualize the notion that—trying to get his brain to catch up with his _tongue_ , which has just suggested that they split up by gender ( _gender_ ) for the night.

Which means. Means. Means.

 _Means_ , of course, himself with one group and Nott with another. Means sleeping separately. Which he did not, until this precise moment, realize or consider in any fashion at all.

Not because he’s forgotten that Nott is a woman, or because he’s forgotten that he is—what he is. But because himself and Nott sleeping apart does not—it is not—it did not occur to him as a possibility. Is the thing.

Even now, he is struggling to translate the concept. (They have not slept apart in so long.)

He stalls, and wonders where to sleep. Which group to go with. The women, or the men? (With Nott, or without her?)

He stalls.

Nott walks off with Jester and Caleb—Caleb—Caleb—

—watches her go, somewhere between fuzzy and blank, caught in quicksand and acutely aware of the misnomer. (The sinking is always slow.)

He stalls.

Unstalls, and sleeps with the men. (Nott has walked off, and he should not simply _assume_ he is welcome to follow.)

He lays himself down in a bed of straw and thinks of old lofts in older barns, filled with straw only half as scratchy as this. Of damp nights, and the patter of rain on the roof. Of chill wind through the cracks in the wood. Of a warm goblin curled close, bony elbows digging into his chest.

But this is no loft, and it is not raining.

He rolls over, and straw pricks the back of his neck. He tries not to scratch. He rolls over again, and mustiness mingles with old manure.

Familiar. A little funny for it. (Funnier still, the salted pork mixed in, tucked in his pockets, as ever, by gnarled green hands. Lifted from a platter paid for with real gold, this time, not a farmhouse kitchen.)

(Very funny, he thinks, and almost smiles.)

He rolls over again. And again.

Caduceus stirs, a few feet off, uncurling slightly from his little ball, ears twitching.

Caleb stills, guiltily. (Caduceus always sleeps so light. A leaf fallen on his shoulder wakes him so fully he takes the next watch, sometimes. Caleb knows this. He should be more considerate.) Just because he is a bit restless—

He keeps still until Caduceus goes lax again, and then rolls over once more, carefully, and pulls his coat tighter about himself.

Just because he is a bit restless, he thinks, and it is a full sentence this time.

Just that.

It is fine, he will sleep. (Is Nott sleeping? Has she made herself a little nest in the straw? Is she warm?)

(She is probably warm. It is not so chilly in these parts, and she has Jester nearby and the woman is sometimes like a furnace.)

(She is fine. He does not need to Message her. She is fine.)

It is all fine.

He tugs his coat tighter about himself and reviews his spells inside his head, components, verbal, somatic, material, beginning with Message and winding his way through the list, past Reduce, past Haste, past Wall of Fire.

He reviews them slow, over and over, until his shoulders unwind and his breath eases and his mind skips over components on repeat and he begins to drift.

At last, he thinks vaguely, and good.

(It is for the best, he thinks, even vaguer. The best. He is getting, getting...getting _practice_. He will need it when—)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> would y'all believe this was originally sposed to be like. ch3. wild  
> anyways. personally i lean more towards trans dude caleb but uhhhhh who could resist adding nb agony to th short list of reasons caleb froze like that? cERtainly not me


	8. Chapter 8

Down past the well, Nott tells Caleb there is water and she can’t go in and she needs him. She asks him to join her.

Without pause, he does.

He does, but he can’t see her.

Follow the sound of my voice, she half-screeches, and he almost smiles, filled from his chest to his ears with quiet, fond amusement, drowning out the lingering stress-fear. And he follows, walking towards the sound, listening, listening—

And he hears a voice.

He hears a voice, and it isn’t Nott’s. It isn’t rough, or grating, or high-pitched, and it doesn’t wash him sunshine-yellow, summer-warm.

It is soft, and smooth, and faintly lilting, and washes him out white and gray and tunnels the world round him, turns it over-vibrant, faintly red at the corners, like he has been out in Hupperdook for hours and it is time now for fireworks.

And it tells him, it says—

The group wants him dead. The group wants him dead, and they are trying to kill him.

It is warning him, will help him, it says, but he hardly hears it. 

His ears ring. The murky water stinks to high heaven. The air is too close to his eyes, white flecks scattering all round, setting the world to glittering.

They want— (There is no sense wondering why.)

They are trying— (Beauregard must have told them. Must have finally come to her senses and—)

Faintly, he hears another voice. High, scratchy.

Nott.

Nott, asking if he is okay.

Vaguely, he tells her that he is good. So good, he says, and then again, to be convincing and because the words taste right on his too-heavy tongue.

Nott wants to call the others. (He hears again, they are trying to kill him. He cannot tell if it is his mind echoing the impossible, too-possible, awful, terrible, entirely-deserved truth, or if this new ally has spoken anew.)

He tells her, less vague, a little more clear, that they are fine, that this is fine, that they can—can wait. (Wait alone, they two, so that he can plan, quietly, before the others arrive. An escape, if possible, a defense, if need be. There is not much time, but any scrap he can buy them is—is something. And will have to be enough. Will have to be, if they want to live.)

And so they wait. And Caleb plans, the words turning over and over and over inside his head. Over and over and over.

And then—

Nott speaks.

Nott speaks, and she says—

She says—

She says she has sent a letter, and he cannot fathom why this is important until—

He hears Astrid’s name on her tongue. Two syllables, mispronounced. Two syllables, unspeakable. Two syllables, and more and more to follow, and Caleb listens, uncomprehending, for a single, terribly blank moment, and then—

Oh.

(One syllable, small, quiet, rising from twin hollows in his skull, in his chest, stealing thought from his head and air from his lungs both until there is only, for one beat, two, three, buzzing and stillness.)

Oh.

Of—

(He does not breathe. His lungs may burst.)

Of course.

Of course the group is trying to kill him. (Of course Nott is part of the group.)

Why else send a letter like that? (Why did he ever assume otherwise?)

Why else?

So—

Of course.

And—

And—

(His mind reels, restarted many times faster than before. The stun has worn off, he thinks vaguely, in some small corner of his brain that still, even now, has time for jokes. The stun has worn off, and it is Hasted again. Hasted, like—like—)

And—

The group turning on him is not _new_. It is not new, with a letter like this, long-sent. (For it must be long-sent. She said _a while back_ , and they have not been separated in a place with a post office for—for at least a week. For months, perhaps. There was not—? Not _time_ , in Nicodranas, or any of the places they breezed through on their way to Felderwin. Nor in Felderwin itself, even if Nott had had the inclination amidst her own sorrow and fear. So it must have been—before their piracy.)

(Before.)

It is, it is old. Months old.

 _You are telling me this now?_ he asks. _Right now?_ he asks, and he thinks—

Planned. (Get him alone, catch him off-guard with this emotional blow, and then the others strike—)

And he thinks—

Worse.

 _Long_ -planned, long-orchestrated, long—

So very long, traveling alongside him, pretending—something like friendship. Something like—

 _Nott_ , especially, something like. Like.

(Like a _schwester_. Like a life partner. Like—)

(But then, Nott is both of those already, to other people. She does not need—clearly, does not _want_ —clearly, never wanted—was never—never—)

She has betrayed him.

She has—

She is still talking. He cannot listen. He will not listen. He tells her _later_ , they will discuss it later, and he does not let himself think about that for too long. He runs over spell components in his head again, instead, and tells her to call the others.

He says something, barely registers what, as they approach. All he sees is their bodies, their weapons, visions of their spells in his head.

All he hears is a little voice in the back of his head, murmuring _light them up, pretty_.

He dips his hands into his component pouch and does not look at Nott.

He thought he could trust her. He thought, of all the Nein, of everyone, of _anyone_ —

He thought—

Well.

So much for partnerships.

He casts Fireball.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it has Been a While but i am Back  
> apologies for the wait; y'all can expect weekly updates again


	9. Chapter 9

Caleb sleeps terribly.

He wakes terribly too, with a start, with poison-spiders swelling in his chest. Crowding his lungs, crawling-hot. And walks terribly, as well, alongside the others, back through the tunnels and out of the well. Stumbling, clumsy. Stumbling, clumsy. (One foot in front of the other, except that it is effort to remember that he has feet. Has a body. Is moving it, piloting it, himself. From within and not the next plane over, three inches to the left. From within and with clarity and not—)

(Without.)

And when he talks, it is terribly as well. Stumbling, clumsy. When he talks, when—

When he talks, which isn’t often. Isn’t much. Isn’t really at all. Isn’t really time.

There isn’t really—

Time, how long has it been? Since the well, since the letter-reveal, since the letter-sending? (Minutes, hours, months, in that order.) (Weeks? Days? Weeks? Months?) How long—?

Too long, too long, and never long enough, never long _enough_. Not for safety. Not for the danger to be past. (Never.)

He knows that. Has known that. Has always, and never forgotten, and will never, can never, though he hopes—hoped—hopes? (When did he begin to—? For how long has he…?)

Time, tenses, they muddle.

He counts minutes in his head.

One, two, three. Four, five, six. Seven, eight, nine—

Jester and Beau have been gone for too long. They have been taken, found, it is his fault, his fault, his—where _are_ they?

—There they are, and they are moving again and he has (it is abruptly very clear) wasted his opportunity to speak with Nott about the—about her—about—

Because they are moving again. Moving, moving, moving.

It is just as well. There were people around, and Message is a thing but amongst a group it is rather conspicuous. He does not want to be conspicuous. He would much rather—

It is just as well.

Later, he thinks. Later, when there is no one around. Later, when they stop moving.

But there is no later. There are always people. They do not stop moving.

They do not stop, they do not stop, he dons a harness and they do not stop. They teleport to Rosohna, to speak to the Bright Queen herself, and he is silent and full of spiders and ash and ink and they do not stop.

They nearly die and finally he speaks, and he is—stumbling, clumsy, still, in his head and his motions, but less, less, the necessary mannerisms settle on his shoulders like a mantle, fitting like a tailored glove with with extra thread at the seams and a tag at the wrist.

He thinks distantly of the imprints.

He thinks of less distantly of spears and arrows and blood and jail cells and goblins.

(They met in a cell. They cannot die in one. They cannot. They cannot, they cannot, they cannot—)

He thinks of halflings. Promises. Time.

And he speaks, and he speaks, and does not stop—

Until he does, and can only breathe, and think of time, and tenses, and never, never, never.

—And sudden, impossible _someday_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter this week, but In Fairness i did originally say that most of these were 500 words. this one jus wouldn't expand vmuch further (tho considering in my draft it was originally literally 11 words i think i did alright lmao)  
> anyways next week's should maybe hopefully be a bit longer to make up for it


	10. Chapter 10

If traveling to the Dungeon of Penance is a whirlwind, traveling through it is a hurricane. (Two steps aside from drowning and reviving in a water elemental, again and again and again.)

Time folds over and doubles back and stretches and speeds up all at once, never consistent for more than a scattered handful of seconds, and it is very difficult to keep track of it. (He thinks perhaps he manages, counting out beats against the side of his leg, tap tap tap tap tap tap, the mental made physical to compensate—but it is hard to be sure, disorienting as it is.)

It must be magic. Must be this strange manipulation of temporal and gravitational energies, a skewing of the timeline, or perhaps twisting of fate-strands, or perhaps—

Perhaps just in Caleb’s head. (Not entirely, certainly, the others look equally as thrown—but perhaps in part.) His mind reeling after all that has happened, all that is yet to come.

Like this tenuous arrangement with the Dynasty, like perhaps an acquisition of some of its Dunamantic knowledge, like the war, like perhaps its end, like—perhaps—possibly, maybe, someday, with allies like _these_ —

Possibly, possibly—

He walls off the thought. Stone by stone, with mud-and-clay to fill in the gaps. Not now. Not quite yet. Indulging the thought any more than he already has is not— _useful_. Not at present. There are other things to consider, more immediate and pressing and tangible.

Like Yeza.

Yeza, and freeing him, and reuniting him with Nott. Reuniting Nott with him. With her family.

Which. They are doing. Right now, maybe. (Trying, at least.)

They are going to _speak_ with him, at least. And that alone is—is. A miracle. An impossibility. (A trick? A trap?)

Caleb keeps walking, and keeps an eye on the Shadowhand, and keeps tapping.

Tap. Shadowhand Thelyss is a magic-user.

Tap. He is a magic-user, and in a position of authority, and very dangerous.

Tap. He is taking them to Yeza.

To Yeza, for Nott.

Caleb struggles to keep watching the Shadowhand, keep filing away the meager details he can glean through the disorienting rush—only halfway succeeds.

His eyes flicker, at regular (or perhaps irregular? hard to _tell_ , even tapping as he is) intervals, back to Nott.

Nott, whose head is ducked, her eyes boring up and forward into the dark, her shoulders hunched—all of her winding small, drawing in, like a clockwork toy wound several times further than it was meant to, the mechanism coiled tight. She skitters on at his side, two steps ahead, hands twist-twist-twisting away in her pockets. (He hopes she is tearing at string, or fabric, or scratching at coins or buttons or anything other than—well.)

(He hopes.)

She is—so frightened. So frightened. (Her flask is untouched at her hip.)

She is _terrified_ , and will remain so until—until they get Yeza out of this awful place.

He wants, very acutely, like being pierced through the chest with a needle and thread and drawn forward on the resulting strings, to speak with her. Reassure her, promise her that it will be all right (though he cannot promise that), that they will do everything in their power to save her husband (though he cannot promise their power goes quite so far, _heroes of the Dynasty_ or no), that—that he is here for her, they are all here for her, and, and—something.

He cannot find the words. (He does not know if they would help.)

Still, they must be said.

And there are—other things, as well, that he would like to say. Thoughts he would like to express, feelings, perhaps, if he can make sense of the soup in his head, and—and questions, as well, one or two or three or twelve, before there is no longer time.

But it is the wrong moment for that. She will be focused on herself, on her husband. This is about her, about them. (As well it should be.)

He watches her shuffle on, silent and keyed up and wound tight, and wants to gather her in his arms. Hug her, carry her perhaps.

Hold her hand, at least. Squeeze it once, wordless. Just—just to remind her. (Just so she has something to hold.)

But perhaps it is the wrong moment for that, too. (Perhaps her husband will not like to see—perhaps she does not want—)

So he only walks a little quicker, reducing the two steps between them to nothing, so that he is right by her side, the back of his hand brushing her shoulder. (She can take his hand, if she wants. It is there, offered.)

She flinches at the contact, eyes darting up in his direction. He offers his best apologetic look (wooden, probably).

She offers him an unreadable look of her own (there are many things in it—fear in the size of her pupils, something like melancholy in the glaze over them, fear again in the set of her ears, something odd in the turn of her mouth, anger in the bite of her teeth into her skin—or maybe that’s the fear again—and it is difficult to piece the lot together). Half a second, and then the crowded look is gone, and she’s offering something like a smile, except that her pupils are unchanged and her ears do not perk up and she is (he is pretty sure) missing the wrinkle-lines round her eyes. Her teeth dig deeper still as the not-smile stretches.

She bumps her shoulder against him just once, and her eyes dance off again, flicking this way and that round them as the not-smile falls.

He leaves his hand where it is. She still does not take it, but she does not step away, either.

They walk on.

And on, and on, and on, until—

They stop in front of a cell. There is a little conversation, a little back-and-forth, and then—

Caleb moves round in front of Nott, drops to his knees, so that he is eye-level. Meets her gaze, staring not at her scraggly brows or the notch in her left ear but right at the lamplike yellow of her iris—in part because he wants every clue he can get as to how she is feeling, and in part because he has a point to make and damned if he is not going to make it.

So he meets her gaze and holds it and asks the most important of the dozen questions he has for her.

Is she okay?

Her response is cheerful and immediate and of course in the negative, of course, of course. He offers a few words—paltry things, but, but true, and sure, and every inch a promise. Says the things he has been wanting to say, or some of them, because _this_ , at last, is the right moment. (Because if not now, then when?)

She asks them not to leave and a bizarre part of him wants to laugh, even as the rest of him wants to crush her to his chest. (As though he ever could.)

(As though he has not tried, before, many many many times, and found—)

(As though there is not every chance that she, herself—)

(As though—)

He tries to tell her _never_ , but she is still talking, asking for—

Help, asking for help, and something in him swells, and he zips in with a suggestion, and—

And there is a little planning, a little chatter, a few jokes, and Nott seems a few seconds further from flying apart at the seams, so that is good, that is something—

And then she is entering the cell, and Caleb—

Caleb watches.

-

Nott approaches Yeza and Caleb runs through his spells inside his head, over and over and over.

Message, Dancing Lights, Fire Bolt, Friends, Magic Missile, Chromatic Orb, Slow, Fireball, Wall of Fire, Polymorph, Suggestion—

No.

He narrows the list.

Message, Dancing Lights, Slow, Polymorph. (...He is probably too used to magical communication by now for it to truly startle him. Unlikely to make a significant difference.)

Dancing Lights, Slow, Polymorph. (...But he will be adjusting already to the light in here. Unlikely to be too disoriented by the globules.)

Slow, Polymorph. (...Reduced ability to harm is still ability to harm. Unacceptable. So—)

Polymorph. (...Yes.)

Polymorph. (A cat, a beetle, a simple turtle.) Polymorph. (A simple turtle.) Polymorph, Polymorph, Polymorph.

He runs over the components in his head—verbal, somatic, material—as Nott speaks with Yeza, again and again and again, and faster as they approach each other.

Yeza puts his hands on Nott’s face, and Caleb reaches into his pocket, grasps a cocoon. Nott says that she is going to drop the illusion and Caleb takes a breath. Nott drops the illusion and Caleb holds it. Yeza says nothing and Caleb holds it. Nott starts to turn, Yeza reaches out, and there is an arcane word on the tip of Caleb’s tongue and—

Yeza rests a hand on her shoulder. And speaks, and says good things, and then hugs her for one minute, two, longer—

Caleb looks away, but he cannot stop himself counting the seconds. Or listening, as Yeza says still more kind things. (He has said nothing but kind things—that he loves her, that her form does not change this, that he is so, so happy to see her alive, that she is so brave, that—)

(So many kind things. So many. It is clear that Yeza loves her very, very much.)

He does everything right.

And Caleb—

He runs through his list of spells one more time and then tucks it away in a corner of his mind, in the space beneath his ribs, and removes his hand from his pocket, and lets it hang limp at his side. He exhales quietly.

He keeps listening. (He still cannot stop.)

And so when Nott says his name, asks his input, four minutes and thirty-two seconds into their embrace, he responds immediately, looking up.

Their hold has relaxed a little, but they are still entwined. They look comfortable. They look almost happy, except for the lingering terror.

He tells them what they need to know. He says hello to Yeza, mind reeling from _the reason I’m alive_ , because he did not expect—to be introduced that way, and on top of that it is always—striking, that it is true from both ends.

But Nott does not stop there, because—why would she? She is Nott, she always—

She introduces him further as _the second-smartest man in the world_ , because she has never been able to let that go, to let his intelligence rest unremarked-upon.

The familiar compliment twists, as it always has—because for all his intelligence has always been praised, all his life, it has never made up for what he lacks in heart—but there is a second, smaller twist this time, alongside the rush of wry fondness and embarrassment.

Because, well.

It is silly—very, very silly—but. Well. He is the _second_ -smartest, now. (And likely always has been, it is just that she is only now voicing it.)

And that is fine, of course, that is fair, and his intelligence is not important anyway, its ranking inconsequential. Truly, he does not care. It is only, it is just—

It is different.

It is different, now, the old compliment. Different.

And that is not a bad thing, of course. Only...a little startling. Though it makes, of course, perfect sense that Nott should change how she speaks of him now that she is no longer hiding the fact that she has a husband. And especially now that said husband is standing right in front of them both.

Perfect sense.

So Caleb puts the strangeness and the odd curling feeling in his chest out of mind. “I have heard so much about you,” he says. (It is a lie. Nott has not wanted to talk about Yeza very much, even after revealing her true history with him. He has not known how to ask, or been terribly certain, really, that he’s wanted to. But he cannot say that, it will hurt the man’s feelings—and besides, _I have heard so much about you_ is the sort of thing one says in situations like this—so he says it. And then he plows on and—)

“I hear you really know your way around a laboratory,” he says. (Truth, this time. The only one he can offer. He knows nothing more.) He has a split second to wonder what he will say if Yeza asks what else he has heard. (Something about how very much Nott loves him, he supposes. Or perhaps something awkward about his sideburns.)

He is saved from wondering by Nott piping up with _just friends_. He is at once alarmed by the idea that they may ever have been something else—something _romantic_ , by all the gods, _no_ —and a little. A little silly, again, about. About. About.

About the idea that—that? About the idea of, of.

Of something.

He loses the train of thought in crashing discomfort as Jester implies, for the second time in a few months, that Nott is somehow his mother. A mother-figure. A parent, as opposed to—

Nott nixes the idea immediately and discomfort is lost in seeping relief. He’s a friend of hers, she says. Just a friend. (There is a second, smaller wave of something at that. Muddled, unpleasant.)

Caleb does not allow himself to dwell on whatever-it-is, only pushes it aside hastily and summons the others forward, saying, “One of many.” (The words are sweet as honey and dry as chalk-dust on his tongue.)

And he falls back as their other friends crowd round her, introduce themselves.

As the Shadowhand steps forward and questions Yeza. As he grants him freedom.

As they all walk, together, Nott and Yeza hand-in-hand, out of the Dungeon of Penance.

Caleb slips beside her, after a little while, and rests a hand on her shoulder, just for a moment. Squeezes once, without looking. Warm as he can, steady as he can. And slips away again, leaving her to the moment, a quiet and softness long-deserved.

And falls back again, falls into step beside Beau, among the others, in their loose half-circle round Nott and Yeza.

An honor guard, he thinks vaguely. A small honor guard, comprised of stab-happy friends. It is an amusing thought. Satisfying. Right. (Bread, warm and rough.) All these friends protecting her, protecting this moment, himself just one of many. (Chalk-dust again, tasteless, dry.)

...Ah, he thinks, as he walks. Ah.

That was it, then, before.

(The idea of _just_.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we Go


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is it wednesday?  
> no.  
> did i get tired of WAITING for wednesday?  
> very yes.  
> have a chapter!

Four rooms, Nott says, raising a finger, and—

Ah. (Of course.)

Caleb inspects a painting on the far wall. (Moorland, it seems to be. Rather gray, dark-skied, scattered with stars. He tries to count them.)

An extra room, he thinks dimly, only half-distracted with _one, two, three, four…_

It is very sensible. Nott and Yeza are of course going to want—to _need_ their own space, tonight of all nights.

It is very thoughtful. Only two rooms between everyone else would be a bit cramped. Especially if they split apart as they did in the stables, because Caduceus is very tall, and Fjord is not terribly much smaller, and he himself not _terribly_ far behind Fjord, so—

Cramped, yes. At least one of them without a bed, almost certainly. Which is a little unfortunate, but ultimately fine, because Caleb does not mind sleeping on the floor. Though, actually, Caduceus would likely offer to take the floor himself, needing the space to stretch out anyway—

Oh, that is a thought. Perhaps if Caduceus takes the extra room…? That way, if the rooms have only one bed apiece, he will not need to take the floor or try to share with anyone else. And if they have two beds apiece, perhaps he will be able to push them together and sleep comfortably for once.

...Yes, that sounds reasonable. Convenient for everyone. He will have to suggest it later.

In the meantime—

He continues counting stars (eleven, twelve, thirteen), and is quiet.

-

Caleb watches Yeza sidelong, during dinner.

He seems—good. Seems kind, and intelligent, and appropriately adoring, appropriately in awe of Nott—

Until Caleb tries to explain about all of the skills she has developed over the course of the last year (because gods know she will not mention them herself, and she _deserves_ recognition), and the man opens his mouth and calls Nott an _assistant_.

Caleb frowns, just faintly, and before he can object Beauregard is doing it for him, questioning, sharp, _assistant_?

Yeza responds in the affirmative and Caleb frowns a little deeper and says that Nott is very quick, prepares to expand on that, expound on that, share the _details_ of all of the things that she can do now, things she has learned all on her own, make him see that she is much, _much_ more than a simple—

And Yeza cuts him off and says, with obvious pride and a little of what sounds like defensiveness, that Nott _is_ very quick, yes, picks things up very fast, and—

And Caleb apologizes immediately and closes his mouth and steps back, his face prickling hot, his chest grown cold, the whole of him overvisible and too large in the space. (It feels almost like being back in the Victory Pit in Zadash. Completely absurd, that, and yet—)

Of course, he thinks. Of course. Silly to have spoken like that. Silly to have—have assumed. Like that.

He is her husband. (Of course he knows her worth. Knows how wonderful she is, how intelligent, how creative, how—of course.)

He’s her _husband_.

Silly to be defensive. Sillier still to think it is at all his _place_. (Perhaps once—but no longer.)

Especially to Yeza, of all people.

Yeza, who has known her far longer. Yeza, who surely knows her far better. (Yeza, with a lifetime’s shared history, and the faint remnants of a thin tan line on one of his fingers, even after weeks in the dark and years—years—without Nott by his side.)

Silly, he thinks, whisper-soft. Foolish.

He does not speak up again.

-

Until it is time to split up the rooms, and he offers his suggestion.

Jester looks at him a little strangely, then—confusedly? pityingly? both? neither?—and says that she thought the room was for Nott and Yeza.

As though he did not know that, somehow. As though it has escaped him. As though he was not aware.

Or perhaps as though he _is_ , and is simply plowing ahead regardless, uncaring, in an effort to twist things into a shape he likes better. As though he is some kind of—of—

Well.

Probably Jester does not mean any of that. (And even if she _does_ , well—he supposes he cannot blame her. He has always been a little slow on the uptake and a _lot_ selfish.) No, probably he has just—again, as ever—been unclear. Explained improperly.

He tries to fix it, to explain. (Ignores the taste of honey on his tongue, for the jar in his pocket is sealed tight, and has been for weeks on weeks.)

(It burns like glowing coals, but he ignores that too.)

-

Caleb watches sidelong, as they all talk.

Yeza’s eyes shine every moment he looks at Nott, every word out of his mouth is adoring, and he wriggles with delight and wonder and pride at every new thing he learns about her. He loves her dearly and it is obvious in every inch of him. (As well it should be.)

Caleb is glad.

She was so afraid for so long, and she does not have to be anymore. At least, not of this. Never again.

She can be happy now. She can go home, if she wants. (And she has made it clear that she wants.)

He is very—happy? For her?

...Well, perhaps happy is not the right word. _Happy_ is waving hands, dancing feet, sunbeams, soft fur, the worn-smooth pages of an old, weathered book. Fireworks. A sky full of stars.

Right now, in this moment, Caleb is none of these things.

Instead, he is very—

Clenched fists seconds from shaking up and down, up and down. Water flowing through stubborn mud. The beat between lightning and thunder, the world gone flash-bright and paused. Thunder itself, contained, noiseless, shaking the ground underfoot. Yellow not like sunbeams but sun _bursts_. Rigid-loose shoulders and held-released breath and so much warmth—not a fire but embers, glowing.

(Embers, dying.)

Caleb is many things, in this moment, and happy _is_ one of them, he knows.

Relieved is another. And proud, and cautious, and tired enough after the whirlwind-hurricane day to sleep for a week. And—something else. (A kernel low in his chest, murky and cold.)

(If he looks at it closer, he thinks, he can probably give it name.)

(He does not look. Only shoves it lower.)

Caleb twists string in his pocket and thinks of winding it tight round his fingers, and blinks back fog, and watches Nott smile at Yeza as he listens, wide-eyed, to Jester’s enthusiastic retelling of one of their misadventures.

She sits precisely a hand’s-breadth from him, their knees never quite brushing, and tucks her teeth back behind her lips. A few still spill out, as they always do, and her smile sputters, and fades. (Her eyes are still smiling, though. Wide and soft and something like sad, except for the warmth about the corners.)

Yeza leans closer to her, and she scoots back. After a beat, he turns to her, looking wounded and confused—then understanding and terribly soft, and he turns away again. Then, without a word, he offers his hand between them, palm-up.

Caleb watches her take it, squeeze once. Watches Yeza squeeze back, thumb brushing over the back of her hand. Watches twin smiles tug at the corners of their lips, a few of Nott’s teeth spilling out anew. Watches her leave them be for several long moments before tucking them back again.

Watches, and watches, and watches, and pretends he cannot feel tendrils of cold leeching out from under his sternum. 

(Faint, but damning. He loathes them. _Loathes_ them.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> caleb: metaphors are terrible they contradict themselves & mix weirdly & don't make any Sense  
> also caleb: if i even THINK of describing ANY of my own emotions to myself via anything other than semi-oblique metaphors i WILL die
> 
> (gotta love that sweet sweet alexithymia)


	12. Chapter 12

Caleb sets his pack down in a corner, pulls silver string from his pocket, and begins to place it around the perimeter of the room. His shoulders prickle uncomfortably all-through, almost audible in the silence. (Empty of the sound of shifting coins, clinking vials, clacking teeth.)

When he mutters the last word and turns back around, Fjord is already half-asleep.

Caleb climbs in bed and thinks to follow suit, but first he is stupid and tries to—have a moment with Fjord. Express thanks, explain himself, _talk_.

It goes sideways, of course. Fjord is missing the context, because Caleb has forgotten to include it, because— (Because.)

And so Caleb lays there in the silence that follows, stares into the dark, and pets Frumpkin, counting the minutes as they go by, recounting all conversations that have gone sideways today.

Five minutes. (The one with the Bright Queen, at first.) Ten minutes. (The one with Fjord.) Fifteen. (With Yeza.) Twenty. (With Jester.) Twenty-five. (With Beau.) Thirty. (With Beau.) Thirty…. (Thirty….)

-

Caleb wakes forty-one minutes later to eerie stillness and a weight on his chest like a thorn-wrapped log. He opens his eyes and—

Frumpkin, clinging. Not clawing, or making biscuits, or purring. Just...clinging. Blinking at him, slow.

Odd.

Caleb blinks back, slow, once, twice, and then closes his eyes. He scratches behind Frumpkin's ears until his claws retract, and then just pets him, soft and slow.

He falls back into a doze in minutes.

-

Caleb is groggily aware of two things— one, that it has been twenty-eight minutes since was last awake, and two, that Frumpkin is now so much a boneless mass that it is a little hard to breathe.

He dismisses him with a snap, rolls over, and lets sleep claim him again.

-

In the lull between hazy dreams, Caleb wonders how Nott is faring….

The wondering sharpens.

How _is_ she faring?

Has she been able to sleep? Is Yeza being as kind behind closed doors as he was with a group of obviously-powerful mercenaries for witnesses? Has she had nightmares? Has Yeza? Are they comfortable? Are they safe? They—Yeza is a halfling, he has no medallion, is _he_ safe? Is—?

And if he _is_ unsafe, then possibly Nott—

Although she of course can take care of herself, and no doubt of Yeza as well. There is no cause for worry.

(No cause, no cause, except—the Assembly knows him. And Nott is clever, and powerful, and devoted, but even she cannot stop the Assembly.)

(But of course the Assembly will not be here. They cannot be here. This is—enemy territory, the heart of enemy territory. It would be folly, surely.)

(But—but—)

Caleb’s skin crawls.

He hauls himself out of bed, slips out the door, and creeps down the hall to Nott’s room. He listens, for a moment.

Nott, snoring. A second set of breaths, slow. (Yeza.)

Alive, safe, fine.

He nods to himself, once, twice, and turns to go.

Pauses.

Turns back, crouches low, and sets an Alarm across Nott's door on the outside. Designates the usual exceptions. After a moment's hesitation, includes Yeza among their number.

Then he turns to go again—

And stops twice more along the hall, pulled forward on strings, setting an alarm on Beau and Jester's room, and then Caduceus and Yasha's, because as right as it feels to do it for Nott and Nott alone, it also feels—strange, in a creeping-slime way, to leave the others so...comparatively exposed. In enemy territory.

So he sets the Alarms, to wash the slime away, and goes back to bed.

He hopes Nott is all right.

He will know, if anyone tries to harm her physically, but. Still.

Caleb rolls over and smushes his face into the pillow.

Still….

-

Caleb drifts, halfway between thought and fog.

-

Drifts, caught between promises and possibility, funny half-visions playing out before his eyes.

-

Drifts….

-

A creaking sound.

Caleb's eyes snap open.

What is—

Another creaking sound.

Oh.

Caleb closes his eyes again. The bed, just the bed. Fjord, rolling over.

He tries to settle back into the half-narrative still crawling round the corners of his mind, but all he grasps are its details—the dream itself is little more than potion-fumes.

Caleb pulls the blankets up higher and settles instead into an old routine—naming spell components for each of his spells in alphabetical order, to lull himself back to sleep.

When, midway through reciting the lot again in reverse alphabetical order, he finds himself actively contemplating possible alterations to the Polymorph spell and beginning to chew on the inside of his cheek, he pulls a face.

Stops doing both, as best as he is able, and pushes the spell list aside for good measure. Clearly it is of no practical use tonight.

Caleb sighs, presses his hands to his still-closed eyes, and resigns himself to staying up for a while.

It figures, he reflects, watching pinpricks dance and coalesce into color-patterns. It is the first time in—how long, now?

He opens his eyes and frowns at the ceiling. He cannot see the spidering crack in the corner with the lights out, but he traces its lines in his mind’s eye anyway as he counts back.

(Up, diagonal, with extensions in five directions, here, and there, and there, and there, and….)

It's the first time in—well, in two days, he supposes. Since the night in the stables.

But before that…?

Five months since Trostenwald, six since the jail cell. So—

A year. Just over, actually. (One year, two weeks, and—)

So—

It is the first time in just over a year that he has slept without Nott close. The foot of the bed is too open, without her. The sides too wide. He feels—oddly untethered.

But—nothing to be done about it. And. And silly, besides.

So he must sleep alone—so what? He has done so before, many times. He can do so again. He _can_.

It is not hard.

It is just—it will just—it will take some getting used to, is all. Because it has been a while.

(If he counts back properly, all the way back, down to his best approximation of the hour, it has been….)

-

Caleb snaps upright so fast his ears ring. Forces himself to breathe through the headrush that follows, eyes skittering from door to window to door to floorboards and back to door.

Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Everything is untouched the Alarms are still active no one has entered any of the rooms but something is _wrong_ , something is wrong, something is—not right.

Something woke him, something feels, something—his skin, the air, the vice round his lungs—something—something—someth—

He summons Frumpkin, orders him to scan the room, snaps into his eyes.

But Frumpkin patrols three times round and sees nothing. No threats of any kind, nothing out-of-place, not even a spider.

Only Fjord, still asleep in the other bed, somehow, though it is pushing seven in the morning and the man has always been something of an early riser. (Perhaps because it is still dark as pitch outside.) Only Fjord, and their packs on the ground. And Caleb’s blankets on the floor, all three of them lying in a heap.

...Ah.

Caleb slips back to his own vision.

It...is not strictly unfamiliar, the sight of his blankets cast aside. He remembers days on days in forests and on roadsides and under awnings in alleys, waking with whatever covers he had (when he was lucky enough to have covers) rumpled at his feet, or kicked several feet away.

But it has been—some time, since the last occurrence. Longer still since it was in any way a regular thing. (Nearly a year, he thinks. Nearly a year.)

Frumpkin jumps up on the bed, and Caleb scoops him up with mostly-unshaking hands. Holds him close to his chest, breathing slow, and just pets him for several minutes, until his hands entirely steady.

Then he just holds him.

At least, he thinks, he had no nightmares. (His dreams were sparse, but pleasant.) At least, he thinks, he did not disturb Fjord with all his restless shifting. (That would have been quite rude.)

At least, he thinks. (At least.)

He buries his face in Frumpkin's fur so that he will not have to look at the pile of blankets on the floor. (So that he will not think, overmuch, of early mornings tucking blankets back over Nott, or late mornings woken to find the blankets still up to his chest, and Nott tucked in the crook of his knees, asleep.)

Frumpkin is very soft.

Caleb waits a minute more, then dismisses Frumpkin.

He slides out of bed, picks up the blankets, and begins to replace them on the bed in the precise order and manner in which he found them—first the quilt, then the throw, and then the other throw folded and set on the end of the bed because it is Fjord’s really, because Fjord only wanted the one and Caleb has never turned down an offer for an extra blanket in his entire life.

He smooths down the edges, tucks in the corners, replaces the pillows. Scrubs a hand down his face, glances round the room.

Considers. (Is Nott awake yet? How did she sleep? Is she okay, after everything?)

(Are the others? The rest of his—of the group?)

(...Actually, that is a point.)

He goes off to find Beau.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bit late cos my laptop died but! here it be  
> anyways idk how many beds there were in that room rly but i've decided on 2 bc it suits mine purposes best that way


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and now for something completely different!

Caleb sits across from Beau and looks her right in the eye, direct as he can, sharp as he can. (He has, again, a point to make. There can be nothing lost in the making. Not here. Not now.)

She frowns a little at this, and it takes an obscene amount of effort not to frown back. (He does a little anyway, a worried thing he can feel tugging one corner of his mouth and settling between his brows—but he tries not to. It will only make things worse instead of better.)

He tries to—explain himself. He tries to—ask.

He has tried very hard to earn—but it does not seem to be. Working, entirely. This friendship. Every time he thinks it is within his grasp, something goes wrong.

(Zadash, their acquaintanceship settled on what he imagines to be permanent tenterhooks. Zadash again, his attempt at shared excitement withered in the face of her steely scowl. The ocean, just beyond Nicodranas, his attempt at reassurance stabbed through with a look which, if distilled into potion form, could almost certainly stun, if not outright kill. And then after Nicodranas the second time, of course. An attempt at—at apology, and honesty, and more reassurance, and _warning_ , met with disgust and rage and—more. All unpleasant.)

(And now, of course.)

And now. Here, again, as ever—something has gone wrong. He has fucked up. She does not want to be his friend.

But he wants her to be, needs her to be, now more than ever, more than _ever_ , now that—now that things are not. Now that they are not the _same_. (And never will be again. For a _multitude_ of reasons, more than even he cares to count. Though he will, of course, invariably, in the midnight hours, as he always does.) (It does not escape him that all of the hours here resemble midnight ones.)

(Nor does it escape him that only some of the reasons wear tri-spired headpieces. That some wear bandages on their ears, tattered vests over chewed-on shirts, little bean-heart tattoos.)

Caleb takes a breath, and thinks of impossible things, and improbable ones, and ones that yet are.

He thinks of favor and of _favors_ , earned, given, wanted. (Thinks of the Dynasty, and the Assembly, and the group. And—)

He asks her to be his friend.

It feels underhanded, dirty, and the most honest thing he has ever said to her, all at once. (And he has long made it a point to be very honest with her, except regarding a very few things, most of which she now knows anyway.)

He feels muck creeping up the backs of his shins, pinch-beetles crawling up his shoulders, an itch slithering its way down his arms. It compels him to keep talking, to explain, _I am on your side, we want the same things, I have taken risks for you, for all of you—_ ( _Please_ , he doesn’t say. He is desperate, and is making no secret of the fact, but the word is trapped somewhere among the beetles.)

 _You don’t have to convince me of anything_ , she says, but—

Doesn’t he, though?

 _I’ve been your friend this whole time_ , she says, but—

Has she?

Last night, it certainly did not seem—

 _Do you believe I’m your friend?_ she wants to know.

There is an obvious answer, and they both know it. He does not give it.

(For many reasons—primarily that she will not like it, and so it will not help—but also that he is not sure—he is not sure they two mean quite the same _thing_ , by this word. Based on. Previous conversations. Because—because Caleb has not had. _Friends_. In over seventeen years. Except for Frumpkin and Nott. And neither of them is quite a _friend_ in the same sense that he is asking Beau to be, for Frumpkin is also his familiar and Nott is also his—his—she is also Nott.)

His mind spirals like ivy in a dozen different directions, but Beau cuts all the strands at once, continuing on like he hasn’t spoken—because, of course, he hasn’t.

She cares for him a lot, she says. She’s told him this, she says. Multiple times. (He remembers only once. After Nicodranas, while she was shouting at him. But then, you know. She was also shouting. Mixed messages, he thinks, but does not say.)

(And then does not even think, because everything is gone a little bit blank, because she says—)

She cares for him a lot, but she’s not sure what it’s been met with.

She is not. Sure.

She is not _sure_. She—

Doesn’t know, has not ascertained, she—

Keeps talking, keeps _saying things_ , mentions—cogs in a grand plan.

And, well. Of course, originally, of course that was—was—it was _practical_ , that was the _point_ , so, so yes. Yes, of course. But that was—and it has _been_ —and still she thinks—still, after all of this, after _everything_ —

(Of course.)

Caleb’s face twists. The words he needs tangle tight in his chest. (She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know, she doesn’t know, she cannot _tell_ —

(It has been painted all over his face, all over all of him, so painfully obvious that Nott has given him _looks_ sometimes after he’s done things and he’s had to turn away and throw himself into books to avoid drowning in embarrass-panic, and so painfully inescapable he risked his own life—and _only_ his own life, as best as he was able to swing it—to save them. All of this and more and still, _still_ , she can’t—)

It is. Very difficult, to explain. To. Correct the misconception. To make her understand that he has, for some time now, some _time now_ , despite himself—

To explain that he is just. Very bad at all of this. (Being a friend, a person. It is no wonder she—)

But he manages, in the end, even if he is a little halting and says it not quite right. He must, because, after his apology—

They are friends again, it seems.

Just like that.

(He is, quite suddenly, unwound of silver string. Loose-limbed, light.)

(Too light, it is jarring, the pinch-beetles multiply. He wants to run. He wants to laugh.)

He pulls out a script (too stiff), pulls his shoulders in (too sharp), tries to cut things short (too abrupt, too obvious), walk off so that he can squash himself in a corner somewhere and pet Frumpkin until he is less likely to float right off into the sky and slip into embarrassing, uncalled-for hysterics.

Beau does not let him.

She hugs him instead. Tight.

He does not hug her back, but nor does he fight her. (Nor does he simply sit there, completely stiff.) He lets her press him to her chest. (He leans, a little.) Arms at his sides, gaze averted, quiet.

She lets go and pushes him back upright, a little. (He moves with that gesture, as well.)

She leaves her hand on his shoulder. (A reverse of—of the usual thing.) He does not push her hand away.

He thanks her again, quieter, softer, in his own language. (It is for her time, again, but also—many other things.)

She thanks him back, and he tries. To match her tone. To be honest. To be—hopeful.

And she agrees, and talks of retribution, and lumps herself in with him as a _piece of shit_ even though she is—most certainly not. (It hits him like a brick with the corners worn down.)

She holds out her hand and he takes it and clasps it, half high-five and half-handshake, and he thinks of brine and of blood and of inkstains on his fingers for days upon days upon days.

He wants to laugh again, in that terrible pressing way, like Nott has finally succeeded in casting Tasha’s Hideous Laughter on him, after all these months. She hasn’t, of course. (She is not here—she is still in her room, with Yeza. Perhaps asleep. Perhaps not. He doesn’t know.) But still, still. He wants to laugh.

He makes a terrible joke, instead. Borrowed from Jester and borrowed from Nott and guaranteed to make Beau scowl.

She does. And tells him _don’t, don’t_ , and grips his hand tighter before dropping it and shoving him away and he almost, almost, _almost_ smiles.

It is—good.

It’s good.

(Everything has changed, everything, everything, and that is terrifying as it is inspiring—)

(But there is this.)

(There is Beau.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was barely gonna do a paragraph abt this originally, but beau n caleb friendship.. important  
> & so here we be


	14. Chapter 14

There is talk of going off to fight giants, and for a terrible moment Caleb worries that Nott will want to stay behind, or that Yeza will want to tag along (and probably get himself killed)—

But it seems he knows his limits, because he suggests staying behind by himself. Caleb has no time for relief before Yeza opens his mouth and says, as well—

“I also really hate being alone right now.”

And Caleb thinks of Frumpkin.

(He thinks of frost. The ground near-frozen, his bedroll worn thin, the chill biting through it. Wind buffeting his hair, stinging his cheeks. Tattered cloth, freezing damp. An ache under his skin—)

He thinks of warmth. Weight on his chest. (Gentle purring, quiet enough to mingle with the noises of the night rather than overlay them entirely, yet loud enough to distract from them. Soft fur. A heartbeat. A set of slow-blinking eyes.)

He thinks of a larger weight pressing into his back. A stronger warmth. (Food in his pockets, plans in the morning.)

He thinks something else, wordless, burning like ice held too long in bare fingers. He squashes it down, thinks of Frumpkin again instead. (Fur beneath his fingers, warmth in the cold, a reason to find food, an excuse to ramble on.)

He considers, for a fleeting second, making an offer. (The burn resurfaces. Something flares alongside it—a little like panic, a lot like grinding metal.)

He ignores it. Asks, not quite offering but perhaps, perhaps working up to it: will having pets make a difference? (He half-hopes for a _no_.)

He gets a _yes_. Steels himself, opens his mouth—

Jester speaks first, drops a bright and shining opportunity in his lap.

Caleb takes it, even as a look of probably-relief crosses Yeza’s face, and runs with it. Pipes up about the weasel, about Sprinkle. (This is—good for everyone, he thinks. Yeza will have plenty of company, Sprinkle will be much more comfortable than he has been in recent weeks, neither Nott nor Jester will have to mourn a loss on this little trip, and Caleb will not have to—)

A second too late, he notices the reluctance in Jester’s voice. Something like regret pings at him, but he brushes it off. (She may be a little disappointed, but she will be fine. It is better this way, safer. Sprinkle cannot be resummoned the way Frumpkin can, after all.)

(And, and besides. He is not to Jester what Frumpkin is to Caleb, anyway. So.)

(So.)

Caleb steps back after that, watches events unfold.

Jester swamps Yeza with animals. Nott showers him with daggers and coin as well. (Caleb thinks of handfuls of shredded meat, and wonders at the contents of Yeza’s pockets. He would not put it past her. Especially as thin as the man seems, just now.)

A smile tugs, just faintly, at the tired edges of Yeza’s face.

Caleb finds himself mirroring it. The sight, the pair of them—very endearing. Very sweet. She is very sweet with him. (And he with her.)

Yeza’s little smile dips a little as he tells her to be safe, the whole of his face gone serious more than soft. But it returns, a little funny (why?) when he tells her that he loves her.

She mumbles it back, pretending she isn’t saying it at all, and _oh_ , that is Nott all over, all over, except for how it isn’t. (He isn’t sure what to do with the thought, or what makes him think it, but he is very sure that it is true, and it makes him want both to dance with her on his shoulders and to carry her for six miles in the snow.)

(There are flashes. Buttons squirreled away. Daggers, coin, meat. Snow. A roadside, a coat. Four letters, firm and sure and desperately unearned.)

(Flowers.)

Caleb’s smile softens.

Seconds later, Jester pokes at Nott, insists she tell Yeza she loves him _properly_ , and. It is an effort not to frown.

Nott has said it already. If that somehow was not good enough for him—well, that is his problem. (But—but it seems to have been enough. And no wonder, as well as he must know her. No wonder.)

But Jester continues to poke and pester and. Oh.

...Well.

Perhaps she has a point. (Last words are a—they are a thing.)

(He tastes honey, smells oil. Lets them sit for a moment. Then pushes them away, because now is not. The time. Now is the time for—)

Perhaps Nott should like to peel off, just for a moment.

(He wonders, in a more lingering way, what it was like the last time she said goodbye.)

Perhaps. Just in case.

(He is not so concerned about _her_ , as such—she is very capable—but they _do_ live quite dangerous lives, and there is, you know, there is still the fact that Yeza is a halfling in a city where halflings are not...particularly common, much less well-liked. He is not necessarily safe, even if he stays in the room. So perhaps. Perhaps—)

She screeches her affection through the door, loud enough for the next city to hear. (Caleb is quite sure they heard echoes in _Rexxentrum_ , and wonders fleetingly what the populace thought of the disembodied scratchy tones.)

The smile returns, a little lopsided. (Whatever they might have thought—)

That was very—

Very Nott.

He scratches his face, part fond, part—something else (startled, he decides a half-second later, startled), as Yeza screeches wordlessly in response, and there is the clatter of several daggers on the hardwood floor.

(Very Nott.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [loud shrugging]

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr at [arodrwho](http://www.arodrwho.tumblr.com)


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